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Sushi has been around for centuries. In the 7th century, China and Southeast Asians introduced the technique of pickling. Earlier on, the Chinese and Southeast Asians practice preserving meats, as well as fish, with salt and fermenting with rice.
The Japanese acquired this same practice and applied it to the pickling of fish with rice. The oldest form of sushi in Japan was Narezushi. Narezushi has little resemblance to the sushi we eat today. The Narezushi was fish meat marinated in soy sauce or vinegar or heavily salted so there was no need to dip it in soy sauce. Some of the fish was even cooked. Originally, when the fermented fish was taken out of the rice, only the fish was consumed and the fermented rice was discarded. Each piece was also larger, almost twice the size of today’s sushi.
With the invention of vinegar, rice being boiled instead of steamed, and more consumption, the long fermentation process has been abandoned. Sometime around the 14th century, vinegar was added to the process. By the 18th century, the fermentation process was abandoned. The sushi we eat today is a “fast food” version of the original invented by Hanaya Yohei. This version is called Nigirizushi. Japanese would buy and eat Nigirizushi by the roadside or in theaters.
Sushi is a finger food of seasoned rice with meat on top; mostly fish, cooked or uncooked.
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Sushi 101 
